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The Makers UPV is a community of students from the Universitat Politècnica de València (The Technical University of Valencia, Spain, with a focus on science and technology).

This group was created to get the opportunity to learn all that is not teach in University from a practical point of view. This includes visits to industries, participation in various competitions and workshops, group projects, modern manufacturing techniques and quick prototyping.

They have chosen the Pinguino 45K50 to experiment the building and the programming of micro-controllers.

Leonardo is a teacher in a high-school located in Trelew, province of Chubut, Argentina (just for the small history it is truly close to real Penguins, Trelew is close to Punta Tombo also called “paradise of the penguins”).

He has been working on a Pinguino board based on the PIC18F4550 with pedagogical purposes. The idea is to build an ecosystem around the Pinguino environment, with shield/capes and everything needed to quickly setup and run complex systems.

The design was intended to be built by students or hobbyist with some knowledge in electronics, and for that reason the PCB is single side, all thru-hole, to simplify manufacturing.

Here is a little video of the Pinguino project deployed in Leonardo’s classroom :

Although it is interesting and useful to learn all the fine details of making things work, I often wished I could just focus just testing an idea, not on jumping the hurdles.

I was envious of the easier path Arduino owners had. Now I found Pinguino and I am impressed with the project as a whole.

Pinguino is doing a fantastic job of making PICs more accessible and productive to work with.

I have used PICkit / MPLAB a fair amount. I thought the self-assembly kit was a convenient way to get the components with a nice PCB at a very reasonable price, but that I would stick with PICkit / MPLAB.

However the IDE and libraries are easier to engage with, at least for people who do not already have the expertise and a body of code to serve their needs.

Now I have seen how much more productive your system can be, I will use it whenever I can. OK, there are snags to resolve, but it is easy to see the big picture and forgive those.

Since I have done much more with my PIC than I would have achieved in the same time without your system. So congratulations and best wishes. You are doing a great thing here.

Download (57 MB) and run the new NSI Windows installer (thank you Victor, great work !) for the Pinguino Project and get the latest version of the IDE (Editor and PIC libraries).
All required softwares to run the Pinguino IDE on your system will be automatically installed. Nothing to do.
You will have choice to install (or not) the compiler you want (for 8- and/or 32-bit processors). The installer will automatically install the right compilers based on host system architecture (32- or 64-bit OS).
Please stay tuned and run the installer again to update the IDE.
Enjoy,
Régis

The Pinguino 45K50 is now available as a Kit in the Pinguino Shop for 9.90 € (inc. VAT).

This new Pinguino is based on the PIC18F45K50 which is pin to pin comparable with the older 4550 serie, and is also capable of running at 5V. It also features a USB precision integrated oscillator, enabling you to build USB projects without the need of any external oscillator, and a CTMU unit for measurement applications.

The Pinguino 45K50 is also very easy to build as it needs only few components (4 resistors, 3 capacitors, 2 LEDs, 1 reset button and 1 USB connector) to work.

The PCB has been designed to be upgradeable. If you need it, you can add a 5V regulator to feed the board from an external power supply. It’s also possible to add an external crystal. In this case, note that the PCB is fully compatible with the PIC18F4550 so you can easily turn your Pinguino 45K50 to a Pinguino 4550.

The Pinguino 45K50 comes pre-programmed with a USB bootloader, so you won’t even need a programmer to use it. You only need a USB cable and a computer (PC or Raspberry Pi).

More info. and building instructions are available on the Pinguino Wiki.

#Pinguino can now drive the Microchip MCP342x family. A two channel low-noise, high accuracy delta-sigma A/D converter with differential inputs and up to 18 bits of resolution. The on-board precision 2.048V reference voltage enables an input range of ±2.048V differentially. The device uses a two-wire I2C™ compatible serial interface and operates from a single power supply ranging from 2.7V to 5.5V. The MCP342x devices perform conversions at rates of 3.75, 15, 60 or 240 samples per second depending on user controllable configuration bit settings using the two-wire I2C Compatible compatible serial interface.